Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 29/46

Life Medicine and the Secret of Longevity

‘Longevity’ is usually understood as living for a long time. Yet one can live for a 100 years or more and still lead a life dominated by ‘time poverty’ and/or lacking in ‘quality time’. And being too busy to experience life in all its richness, depth and fullness – and to draw meaning and fulfilment from it – is itself a major cause of illness. In contrast to the association of ‘life’ itself with permanent activity and ‘busy-ness’, Life Medicine recognises that the true ‘length’ of our lives has less to do with the mere quantity of years we live than with the quality and extent of the time we take for ourselves and others whilst living them. Indeed taking time – by which I mean ‘taking our own time’ – is the true secret of health and longevity in every sense – both qualitative and quantitative. A life lived more slowly – given more time – is both a richer and a longer life. The key to this in turn is making time or taking time for ourselves, for others – and for all the things listed below – and many more:

Taking time to feel and be more aware of our bodies all the time – and not just when we are ill.

Taking time to feel and be more aware of our bodies as a whole – and not the just the parts of them we are using or feeling at any given time.

Taking time to be aware of our breathing – and to consciously breathe more slowly.

Taking time to be more aware of our speaking – and to consciously speak more slowly.

Taking time to feel our thoughts and feelings more deeply before we speak them.

Taking time to feel and adjust our posture and to relax our muscles before speaking or moving.

Taking time to allow longer intervals of silence in communication – intervals in which we take all the time we need to silently take in and digest what another person has said before reacting to it.

Taking time to premeditate any activities before we engage in them, to choose and time our actions and interactions in a way that feels right in our bodies – neither needlessly rushing or delaying them – and never just ‘going from one thing to another’ in time.

Taking time to pause and stop time – to create ‘breathing spaces’ between every single interaction, task or activity we engage in – time to rest from them, to recollect, digest and process our experience of them, to feel for deeper layers of meaning in them – and let fresh insights arise from them.

Taking time to feel for and return to a place of deep inner stillness and silence within us before our next actions or words – so that we act and speak from that place of inner stillness and silence.

Taking time to ‘open ourselves’ bodily – to feel and take in the entire space around our bodies.

Taking time to ‘ground ourselves’ bodily – to feel the ground beneath our feet and our entire lower body below the waist.

Taking time to ‘centre’ both ourselves and our breathing in our true spiritual and physical centre of gravity – our lower abdomen – using only our abdominal muscles to breathe and feeling the inner space of the abdomen as the true seat and centre of both our body and self.

Taking time to ‘body’ what we feel before expressing or acting on our feelings – for example to find a tone of voice, facial expression or look in our eyes that truly fits the way we feel inside.

Taking time to make wordless feeling contact with others before speaking with them – to feel and take another person in as ‘some body’ and not just an ‘other mind’ or ‘talking head’.

Taking time to ‘come to our senses’ – using our bodies to experience more vividly and intensely the immediate sensory and sensuous dimension of every encounter or experience, person or place, thought or emotion, situation or state of being.

Taking time to be with and ‘bear with’ ourselves and others in ‘pregnant silence’ – thus allowing new ways of feeling ourselves and relating to others – a new ‘inner bearing’ – to be born from that pregnant silence.

Taking time in all these ways – not just to slow down but also to savour time – to let every single experienced life activity, event or encounter linger on in our bodies and fill them with felt and living meaning.

Taking time in this way to experience true inner ‘ful-fillment’ in life – rather than trying to just ‘lead a full life’.

Taking time to be truly patient with our bodies, our feelings and our lives – and in this way both deepen and stretch out time itself – rather than becoming ‘a patient’ or seeking to ‘extend’ our life.

‘The Secret of Longevity’ – taking more time in one’s life to be more aware of time itself – and to linger in a bodily way with all that occurs within it.



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Socialist Quotes for Sunday Reflection pt 46: #HolocaustMemorialDay special

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Modern Zionism is the ideology, a ramified system of organisations and the practical
politics of the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie which has closely allied itself with monopoly
circles in the USA and other imperialist countries. The main content of Zionism is
bellicose chauvinism and anti-communism.

The Israeli ruling circles are junior partners in the international Zionist concern: this is

indeed one of the most important conditions of their existence as ruling circles. The

"Zionist Concern," represented by the World Zionist Organisation, the World Jewish

Congress, which is really a branch of the former, and numerous of her offshoots, whose

role is sometimes more important than that played by organisations with a signboard at

their entrance, is at the same time one of the world's largest associations of finance

capital, a self-styled global "ministry" for the affairs of "world Jewry," an international

intelligence centre, and a well-run misinformation and propaganda service. The cardinal 

aim of the concern's "departments" whose operations are guided from a single centre, is

amassment of profits and wealth ensuring them power and a parasitical well-being within

the imperialist system. Needless to say, defence and consolidation of imperialism's

positions is part and parcel of this main objective of international Zionism. 

Let us recall what Marx wrote: "Judaism has persisted alongside of Christianity not only

as a religious criticism of Christianity, not only as the embodiment of doubt in the

religious parentage of Christianity, but equally because Judaism has maintained itself,

and even received its supreme development, in Christian society." 

But of course something can only be said to persist provided it has existed up to the

moment when the question of its continued existence or disappearance arises.

Consequently, the concept "Judaism" (emphatically not to be qualified simply as

"bourgeois huckstering") steps across the temporal border of capitalist society and

recedes into the ages.

The term "huckstering" is so adequately defined in the German language that if necessary

it can be used to characterise all the activities conducted by Phoenician, Armenian,

Jewish and other traders of the pre-capitalist epoch. Marx, however, does not do this.

Indeed, one of the reasons why Zionists hate Marx is the fact that apart from having a

collective implication, the concept "Judaism" he introduces contains a definite,

accusatory characterisation of the activity (as the most typical huckstering) of the rulers

of Jewish communities, the direct bearers of Judaism. 

"All over Europe," Lenin wrote, "the decline of medievalism and the development of
political liberty went hand in hand with the political emancipation of the Jews, their
abandonment of Yiddish for the language of the people among whom they lived, and, in
general, their undeniable progressive assimilation with the surrounding population."

Examining this period Leonard Stein states in his Zionism: "The emancipated Jews of the
West could no longer regard themselves as exiles living in a world apart. They had
become firmly rooted in the countries of their birth, to which they were attached, not only
by political allegiance but also by the closest ties of interest and affection. . . . They had
ceased to be simply Jews, and as Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, or whatever it might
be, they went their several ways. They could no longer rest content with the old-world
doctrines of the Exile and the Redemption, which envisaged the Jews as the scattered
fragments of a homeless people."

The rapid process of emancipation mentioned by Lenin cut through all obstacles barring
its way and hit hard at Judaism, the mainstay of Jewish bankers, factory-owners and
traders.


In the 1870s the Syrian and Palestine Colonisation Society was founded in England "to
promote the colonisation of Syria and Palestine and the neighbouring countries by
persons of good character, whether Christians or Jews." The time was ripe for the
emergence of Zionism: the time had come when, as the early 20th century Zionist leader
Max Nordau put it, if Zionism had not existed "Great Britain would have had to invent
it."

As we have seen the World Zionist Organisation was founded in 1897. In 1902 the
Jewish Colonial Trust was created, an international Zionist joint-stock company, which
according to Nahum Sokolow "is the financial instrument of the Zionist movement, and
its main object is the industrial and commercial development of Palestine and the
neighbouring countries."

Zionists have always attached the greatest importance to implanting the idea that "antiSemitism is eternal" in the minds of the Jewish working people. The senile Yahweh and
his remiss messenger, evidently disinclined to make his appearance, could not in modern
times fully live up to hopes placed in them (as we have seen, even Zionist leaders
themselves admitted as much). This being the case they turned to anti-Semitism, the
persecution of the Jews, making it their true god, their real hope for success and
Zionism's sole stake in life.

The caste system in Israel is a Zionist instrument for dividing the Israeli working people

by which the ruling class ensures itself freedom of manoeuvre and effective control and

the opportunity to incite and fan racialism spearheaded against the Arabs, a means of

toning down class conflicts in the Jewish community and securing at least a temporary

alliance of all those who in one way or another seek to gain from the persecution of the

Arab minority. 

Arab minority. . . . Let us not mention the time when there were not more than 5,000

Jews in the whole of Palestine, but take the period of the formation of the State of Israel. 

In keeping with the UN decision of November 1947, the State of Israel was set up on a

territory of 14,000 square kilometres with a population (plus or minus 5,000) of

1,100,000 of whom 600,000 were Jews and 500,000 Arabs. 

As a result of the 1948 war Israel annexed 6,000 square kilometres of Arab Palestine with

a population of approximately 400,000.

At the beginning of 1949, according to Israeli data, not more than 160,000 Arabs

remained on the territory of more than 20,000 square kilometres controlled by Israel.

Under what circumstances and whither did more than 700,000 Arabs disappear? 

What became of their immovables? Who uses them? Who owns their land now? How

many of them were shot as a lesson to others refusing to leave their homes? How many

died from disease, hunger, or through not having a roof over their heads?

Let us cite the few facts available from Israeli sources:

The majority of the Arabs were forcibly expelled in the war of 1948 and their villages

were destroyed.

On 5.11.1948 the inhabitants of the village of Iqrit in Western Galilee were expelled by

force.

On 15.11.1948 the village of Kfar Bira'am was evacuated by force.

On 4.2.1949 the inhabitants of the village of Kfar A'nan were evacuated, most of them

expelled across the border. The village was demolished by the army.

On 28.2.1949, 700 Arab refugees were evacuated from the village of Kfar-Yasif (who

settled there after being driven out of their own villages). All were expelled across the

border.

On 24.1.1950 the army evacuated by force the inhabitants of Ghabsiya village who were

expelled across the border.

On 17.8.1950 the inhabitants of the Arab town of Majdal Ashkelon (about 2,000) were

expelled from the country.

Early in February 1951 inhabitants of 13 small Arab villages in Wadi-A'ara were

expelled outside the country.

On 17.11.1951 the village of AI- Bowieshat was demolished by the army and its

inhabitants expelled across the border. 

In September 1953 the inhabitants of the village of Um-El-Faraj were expelled and the

village demolished.

On 29.10.1956 men, women and children in the village of Kfar Kassim were massacred.

The world knows only a fraction of the tragedy of the Arab refugees (the above facts are

only a cross-section of that fraction). But with time all details will come to light. 

The Israeli version of apartheid (Ashkenazim-Sephardim-"goy"-Arab) plus an elaborate system of brutal racial discrimination against the Arabs serve the same purpose. They are a component part of the policy pursued by the Zionist elite of the World Zionist Organisation and Israel in the formation of a so-called centre of influence—a "Jewish centre" (and not the State of Israel inhabited by Israelis).


The leaders of international Zionism can do neither without the ruling class now in power
in Israel, nor without a privileged caste of emigrants from countries where the wealthiest
and politically influential Jews are living (Europe and America). Ostensibly this caste
personifies Israel as a whole, for, according to Zionist psychologists, it is only in the
name of people of their own kind that a specific section of Jews in Europe and America
will continue their donations (i.e., filling the Zionist coffers) and demonstrate their
backing for the idea of "dual citizenship."

This is another important element of the Israeli version of apartheid.



Yuri Ivanov - CAUTION: ZIONISM! Essays on the Ideology, Organisation and Practice of Zionism, 1970

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"That is precisely what the Jewish problem amounts to: assimilation or isolation?—and the idea of Jewish 'nationality' is definitely reactionary not only when expounded by its consistent advocates (the Zionists), but likewise on the lips of those who try to combine it with the ideas of Social-Democracy (the Bundists). . . . Karl Kautsky, in particular reference to the Russian Jews, expresses himself ever more vigorously. Hostility towards non-native sections of the population can only be eliminated when the non-native sections of the population cease to be alien and blend with the general mass of the population. That is the only possible solution of the Jewish problem, and we should support everything that makes for the ending of Jewish isolation.' Yet the Bund is resisting this only possible
solution for it is helping, not to end but to increase and legitimise Jewish isolation. . . ."

"The best Jews, those who are celebrated in world history, and have given the world foremost leaders of democracy and socialism, have never clamoured against assimilation.  It is only those who  contemplate the 'rear aspect' of Jewry with reverential awe that clamour against assimilation."

- V. I. Lenin

...............

Political Zionism emerged at the close of the nineteenth century as the ideology, and then the practice, of the reactionary Jewish bourgeoisie, fearful of the awakening of the heroic self-consciousness amongst the Jewish proletariat.

The capitalists of England, the USA, France, Germany, and other countries, amongst them millionaires and multi-millionaires of Jewish origin, who had their eyes on the wealth of the Near East, helped the creation of the Zionist idea. From the very outset it was linked with the project of the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish state as a Jewish fortress, a barrier against Asia

Zionism and anti-semitism are two sides of the same coin - racism. Zionists greeted the anti-semitic policies of Tsarism in its time and also the monstrous policies of genocide at the time of Hitler.

Hence it came about that Zionists "co-operated with Hitlerites and helped them to destroy millions of Jewish lives, attempting to save only the capitalists. The Zionists always regarded anti-semitism, and still do so, as an important means of forcing all Jews to leave their countries and escape to the 'Promised Land' in Israel".

The Judenrate [Jewish councils] sincerely and exactly carried out all the orders of the fascists, even orders about the physical mass elimination of the Jewish population... In the shape of the Judenrate the activities of the Zionists were legalised and their leaders became loyal executors of fascist policies.

Wherever the inhabitants of the ghettos who were condemned to death succeeded in organising uprisings against the fascists, especially in Warsaw in 1943, the Zionists helped the Germans frustrate the uprisings, or crush them where they occurred.

Zionist ideologues have never concealed their positive attitude towards anti-semitism, in which the powerful Jewish bourgeoisie and Judaic clericalism saw a convenient way of maintaining their influence over the Jewish communities.

Israel has a special relationship of the closest kind with South Africa. Israel and South Africa are linked to one another by economic, political, military, and ideological ties... Israel and South Africa are linked by a common racist ideology and practice, and by reactionary domestic and foreign policies... The union of the racists of Israel and South Africa is a massive threat to the African peoples and to the whole of humanity.

In many bourgeois countries, Zionist organisations have implanted their 'cadres' and 'sympathisers' into the central press agencies, the editorial offices of radio and television, into the cinema, the sciences, arts, and literature. Using these powerful levers, the Zionists influence public opinion, overtly or covertly preaching their ideas, skirting round in silence or distorting anything which contradicts their ideology in the slightest.


Read:
V. Bolshakov (1972): Zionism in the Service of Anti-Communism.

M. Davydov et al. (1973): We Pass Judgement on Zionism.

I. Mints et al. (19731: Zionism: Theory and Practice.

V. Skurlatov (1975): Zionism and Apartheid.

R. Brodsky/ Y. Shulmeister (1976): Zionism - A Tool of Reaction.

V. Kiselev et al. (1977): International Zionism: History and Politics.

................

...By its nature, Zionism concentrates ultra-nationalism, chauvinism and racial intolerance, excuse for territorial occupation and annexation, military opportunism, cult of political promiscuousness and irresponsibility, demagogy and ideological diversion, dirty tactics and perfidy... Absurd are attempts of Zionist ideologists to present those who criticize them, or condemn the aggressive politics of Israel's ruling circles, as antisemitic... We call on all Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, representatives of intelligentsia: take active part in exposing Zionism, strongly rebuke its endeavors; social scientists: activate scientific research to criticize the reactionary core of that ideology and aggressive character of its political practice; writers, artists, journalists: to more fully expose the anti-populace and anti-humane diversionary character of the propaganda and politics of Zionism...

- Pravda 1.4.83

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“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home”

- Mahatma Gandhi

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“People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.....In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid. To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by "apartheid" you mean South African-style apartheid. What’s happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse.”

- Noam Chomsky

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“If every single Jew born anywhere in the world has the right to become an Israeli citizen, then all the Palestinians who were chucked out of Palestine by the Zionist Government should have the same right, very simple.”

- Tariq Ali

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“I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.”

- Sigmund Freud

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"The trouble is that Zionism has often thought and said that the evil of antisemitism was necessary for the good of the Jewish people. In the words of a well-known Zionist in a letter to me discussing the original Zionist argumentation: 'The antisemites want to get rid of the Jews, the Jewish State wants to receive them, a perfect match.'"

- Hannah Arendt

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Changes to recruitment: a more individual-focused approach

In our struggle to expose the confront the Ruling Class and its collaborators, there is a natural tendency to seek out others who share our views.  It is a part of human nature to wish to share the burden, but therein lies the danger of becoming trapped inside a ghetto of our own making.

We cannot afford the luxury of dealing only with like-minded people, nor should we wish to.  Limiting oneself to information which reinforces ones preconceptions is to behave as the organised Trotkyites do, with their 'No Platform' strategy.  By refusing to consider opposing views, these people block out any chance of being proven wrong, thus condemning themselves to be forever in an ideological prison.

Blindly defending an ideology without questioning it, is akin to a cult-like devotion which aids those in the aloof leadership ranks, and is detrimental to genuine understanding.  Only those who are perfect are immune from making mistakes, and thus have no need to be open to change; no one of that calibre is alive in the world today, and those who believe they are, clearly need to be kept from positions where they can influence the lives of other people.

Whilst the No Platform mentality is largely manifested amongst neo-Trot revisionist reactionaries, the other end of the political spectrum is equally prone to the 'big fish in little pond' mentality of policing those who allow themselves to be categorised as being within the ideological fold.  We in the Socialist Motherland Party understand the need to steer clear of falling into the trap of having a rigid ideology, but we also understand the need to have a coherent one!  This is a balancing act which is not without its difficulties.  Many organisations have come and gone, some stubbornly holding on to their existence when they should have long ago folded voluntarily.  One only has to think of all the rival organisations which spend more time recruiting from one another than they do gaining converts from the mass populace.  Ironically, it is very common for the leaders of the rival groups to preach of the need for Unity against the common enemy; Unity which they insist can only be achieved under their leadership!

In a time when the false dichotomy of Left and Right is clearly giving way to a new unified socio-economic and political movement based on mutual support, it is absurd that the old divisions are so vigorously defended.  The great danger to the Ruing Class lies in an awakening of those who are hypnotised by the Left-Right charade.  Should those who are willing to actively fight for their principles come to realise that the real enemy is laughing at how easily they can be manipulated to fight one another, then a shift of focus from futile and self-destructive squabbling, to vital and realistic action, could be achieved.  It is precisely to prevent such an awakening that the rival factions are allowed to continue, even to the point of being ineffectively legislated against, in order to create a false feeling of validation through persecution.

We cannot afford to sit in ideological ivory towers, refusing to communicate with those who do not share our views.  If we refuse to speak to those who are not already aware of the underlying reasons for the woes of the world, then all we will be doing is preaching to the converted.  If we are to have any chance of defeating our enemies, we need - at the very least - to weaken their support base; that requires preaching to the misdirected but active useful idiots.  For those with a religious disposition, it could be said that our task is not 'to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'

We must engage with everyone who is ready to explore the fact that all is not well with the world.  To that end, we have to link up with people who have information which can help to unravel the web of deceit which keeps the exploiting ruling class in power.  The presence of infiltrators and economically-motivated opportunists in every organisation in which membership has grown beyond a tightly-knit few does make our task harder, but it does not in any way justify doing nothing.  If we are to overcome the war-mongers and profiteers of globalism, we must reach out to those who can help, in however small a way.

The recruitment aim of the Socialist Motherland Party is to awaken the misled activists from across the spectrum, and to work alongside the opinion formers.  Quality is always far more important than quantity.   We have had a form of 'No Platform by default' in our refusal to deal with people who have ever been connected with a range of organisations which have traditionally been defenders of the status quo.  Likewise we have refused to have dealings with people who have been a part of liberal organisations.  We need to make our recruitment strategy more individual-focused and less party-focused.

The Socialist Motherland Party is striving for a better society, a fairer society, a saner and less individualistic society.  We have had approaches from people who we consider out natural Comrades, and we welcome these contacts, having the full intention of building strong and deep links with people in organisations which share more of our ideals than they differ.  We have also had approaches from people from organisations which we have very little in common with, and such individuals we encourage as individuals rather than as party members.

We have decided to open our Culture blog to everyone who has something to contribute which shows the beauty of Working Class Culture, as opposed to the degenerate and sickening bourgeois imposter which the mass media push as if it was in any way an authentic expression of humanity.  This is an opportunity to put the theory of 'unity' into practice.

We maintain our opposition to bourgeois identity politics so of course will not accept those who promote degeneracy as members. But in the case of people who have been in organisations which have supported ideas which are contrary to the well-being of the people, as long as the individuals in question leave behind their old misguided views, we see only a positive outcome from bringing in people who have an inner desire to fight the common enemy.


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Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 28/46

Life, Death and ‘Terminal Illness’

“The name of the bow is life. Its work is death.”

Heraclitus

The Greek word for ‘life’ (bios) also means ‘bow’. Yet the apparent truism that life is a span of time drawn out, like the string of a bow, between birth and death, and that the very body that sustains our life will eventually also ‘work’ our death is one that most people would like to forget. Their belief in biological medicine is not just rooted in a quasi-religious respect for the authority of modern science and technology and its medical application. In many cases, it is also rooted in the false belief that birth and death are the alpha and omega of our existence as such i.e. that death brings a final end to our lives, to our consciousness – indeed to our very being – rather than releasing us, like a bow releases an arrow, into different and broader dimensions of existence, consciousness and life. This belief in turn is linked to the modern scientific notion that consciousness is a mere product or property of our bodies and brains – a notion that is actually quite illogical. For given that we only know we exist or have a body through a (conscious) awareness of being and of having a body, to reduce this awareness of our bodies to some product or property of our bodies, is like reducing our entire dream awareness to the product or property of some particular thing we are aware of dreaming.

As for what we think of as our bodies themselves, there is not an atom in them that does not itself ‘survive’ the disintegration of the human organism – or is not imbued with its own consciousness. Yet the body that concerns us here is not what we think of as our ‘mortal’ or ‘physical’ body but rather what in Life Medicine goes by the name of the ‘lived’ or ‘felt body ’. Since this body is essentially nothing but a body of consciousness, a distinct ‘psychic body’ or ‘soul body’, it cannot but survive the disintegration of our physical body and its soul – made up of atomic and molecular consciousness.

For centuries however, the understanding that the soul itself has its own innate bodily shape and form – its own body – has been surrendered to a false separation of ‘body’ and ‘mind’ – or ‘body’ and ‘soul’. Paradoxically therefore, whereas most people believe that the possibility of life after death depends on the body and soul being separate entities, in a sense the very opposite is the case – the soul survives death by virtue of having its own body. Proof of the ‘existence’ of such a body requires no supposedly ‘scientific’ form of experimentation or evidence, nor even the experience of dreaming or so-called ‘out of body’ states in which we inhabit another, entirely subjective body. For in reality this felt body or ‘soul body’ – the body as we subjectively feel and experience it – is and can be the only body that we ever experience. Its existence is therefore ‘empirically’ self-evident and not an hypothesis to be proven.

Even putting such philosophical arguments aside however, the fact remains that the very belief that death marks the ultimate terminus or end point of our being and consciousness is in many cases a principal reason why so many people with actual or potentially ‘terminal’ illnesses resort to biomedical treatments. For if death truly is the terminal point of our existence, then it will seem to them that their ‘life’ depends on such treatments, i.e. life and being as such and not just their existence in this life. So for them any medical means of forestalling death or extending their current life is understandably attractive to them – even if it comes at the expense of further weakening their own bodies through treatments such as invasive surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, and/or severely reducing their quality of life through other side effects of such treatments.

That is why another important role of the Life Doctor is to help patients come to more deeply considered decisions about whether or not to accept the forms of biomedical treatment that may be recommended to them – often with considerable pressure. Above all, however, the Life Doctor must be able to reassure the patient with absolute personal and philosophical conviction that no one – whether seemingly healthy or severely ill – dies before they are inwardly ready to die for some reason connected with their current life and existence in all its dimensions – and not just the life of ‘the body’ as biological medicine understands it.

“… no person dies ahead of his or her time. The individual chooses the time of death. It is true however, that many cancers and conditions such as AIDS result because the immunity system has been so tampered with that the body has not been allowed to follow through with its own balancing act.”

“Again, however, no individual dies of cancer or AIDS, or any other condition, until they themselves have set the time.”

Seth, in The Way Toward Health (see appendix 6)

Seth also adds the following insights, all of which form part of the philosophical framework of Life Medicine and Life Doctoring:

“People with life-threatening diseases … often feel that further growth, development, or expansion are highly difficult, if not impossible to achieve at a certain point in their lives. Often there are complicated family relationships that the person does not know how to handle … In all cases, however, the need for value fulfilment, expression, and creativity are so important to life that when these are threatened, life itself is at least momentarily weakened. Innately, each person does realise that there is life after death, and in some instances such people realise that it is indeed time to move to another level of reality, to die and set out again with another brand new world … Often, seriously ill people quite clearly recognise such feelings but they have been taught not to speak of them. The desire to die is considered cowardly, even evil, by some religions – and yet behind that desire lies all of the vitality of the will to life, which may already be seeking new avenues of expression and meaning.”

An important role of the Life Doctor in relation to so-called ‘terminal illness’ should therefore be to question how the very term ‘terminal’ is understood by the patient – in other words whether they themselves see death as an absolute termination of their being or can understand it as a return and transition of the soul to a “brand new world”, i.e. a different dimension of consciousness in which possibilities of expression, growth and development frustrated in their current life and world might be fulfilled. For behind the ‘will to die’ do not necessarily lie ‘suicidal’ impulses in the way they are ordinarily understood – as the expression of a desire to annihilate the self. Such impulses may also arise from a conscious or unconscious recognition of what the world to come offers the self in terms of greater fulfilment. This recognition is important in another way too – since many suicides would be avoided were the individual to realise that death does not bring an end to their life – or to important challenges not met within it.

As Seth points out, it is a scientific dogma “…that life is meaningless, that it has no purpose, and that its multitudinous parts fell together through the workings of chance alone…” adding that “such dogma is far more religious than scientific, for it also expects to be believed without proof, on faith alone. All of life is seen as heading for extinction in any case. The entire concept of a soul, life after death, or even life from one generation to the next, becomes doubtful, to say the least … In such a philosophical world it would seem that man has no power at all… those concepts can have a hand in the development of would-be suicides, particularly of a young age, for they seem to effectively block a future.”

This question of ‘life after death’ then is by no means ‘merely’ metaphysical or philosophical, for every individual bears within them a set of philosophical beliefs or assumptions with a profound bearing on their relation not just to health and illness, but to the relation of medicine to life and death.

“There are those who come down with one serious disease – say heart trouble – who are cured through a heart transplant or other medical procedure, only to fall prey to another, seemingly unrelated disease, such as cancer. It would relieve the minds of family and friends, however if they understood that the individual involved did not ‘fall prey’ to the disease, and that he or she was not a victim in usual terms … This does not mean that anyone consciously decides to get such-and-such a disease, but it does mean that some people instinctively realise that their own development does now demand another new framework of existence.”

“Much loneliness results when people who know they are going to die feel unable to communicate with loved ones for fear of hurting their feelings. Still other kinds of individuals will live long productive lives even while their physical mobility or health is most severely impaired. They will still feel that they had work to do, or that they were needed …”

Specifically with regard to cancer, Seth comments that:

“Many cancer patients have martyr-like characteristics, often putting up with undesirable situations or conditions for years. They feel powerless, unable to change, yet unwilling to stay in the same position. The most important point is to arouse such a person’s belief in his or her strength and power. In many instances these people shrug their shoulders, saying “What will happen, will happen,” but they do not physically struggle against their [life] situation.”

“It is … vital that these patients are not overly medicated, for oftentimes the side effects of some cancer-eradicating drugs are dangerous in themselves. There has been some success with people who imagine that the cancer is instead some hated enemy or monster or foe, which is then banished with mental mock battles over a period of time. While the technique does have its advantages, it also pits one portion of the self against the other.” [my stress]

“Cancer patients most usually feel an inner impatience as they sense their own need for future expansion and development, only to feel it thwarted.” [my stress]

“Again, we cannot generalise overmuch, but many persons know quite well that they are not sure whether they want to live or die. The overabundance of cancer cells represents nevertheless the need for expression and expansion – the only arena left open – or so it would seem.”

(from The Way Toward Health, by Jane Roberts)

The phrases I have italicised above offer important insights that Life Doctoring for patients with potentially terminal illnesses needs to take account of.

On the one hand, they affirm the general understanding of Life Medicine that in seeking to ‘fight’, ‘conquer’ or ‘get rid of’ an illness, one is effectively trying to fight, conquer or get rid of a vital part of ourselves – a part that is showing us how ‘sick’ or ill-at-ease we are with our lives or way of living – and that in a very specific way for which the timing and specific nature of our illness will always offer us clear clues.

On the other hand, they return us again to fundamental issues of life and death – or rather beliefs regarding them. For, if death is seen as the final end of life and being, then there might not only be an understandable impatience both to ‘cure’ any disease we believe can or will kill us – regardless of our will to live – but perhaps also an impatience to ‘live life to the full’ in whatever limited period of time we believe (or are led to believe) we still have. This again is understandable, and yet there is also the possibility that this intense impatience to ‘make the best use’ of our remaining years or ‘live them to the full’ (whether we are healthy or ill) may be a concealed expression of a still unacknowledged will to die – expressed through an impatient desire to get through these years not just as intensely but also as quickly as possible.

Another important key to Life Doctoring for ‘life-threatening’ illness is therefore patience as such. That is because for whatever reasons and in whatever ways an individual may have become or continues to remain ‘a patient’ – this may be a result either of them being too patient with their life circumstances or too impatient to deal with them except through illness, biomedical treatments – or even an exaggerated ‘will to live’. For through this will to live some ‘patients’ may be seeking to impatiently hide from a still unacknowledged ‘will to die’ – or to impatiently deny any remaining inner conflict between their will to live and their will to die. This dilemma becomes even more charged as a ‘life or death issue’ if a patient is or feels pressured to quickly decide for example, whether to immediately accept potentially dangerous forms of biomedical testing and treatment – or simply to be patient – not just to ‘wait and see’ but to give themselves time to see more deeply into themselves, their life and their illness. At such times it might well be of great importance for ‘the patient’ to heed the words of Martin Heidegger: “Patience is the truly human mode of being.”



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Socialist Quotes for Sunday Reflection pt 45

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“The army must become one with the people so that they see it as their own army. Such an army will be invincible....”

- Mao Tse Tung

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from: Agim Bunjaku 

https://www.theguardian.com/…/robert-mundell-evil-genius-eu…

But Mundell, a can-do Canadian-American, intended to do something about it: come up with a weapon that would blow away government rules and labor regulations. (He really hated the union plumbers who charged a bundle to move his throne.)

"It's very hard to fire workers in Europe," he complained. His answer: the euro.

The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government's control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession.

"It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians," he said. "[And] without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business."

He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace – or the plumbing

- Greg Palast on Robert Mundell, creator of the Euro

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“They have pillaged the world: when the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of 'empire'. They make a desolation and call it 'peace'”

- Tacitus

..............

Downloadable FREE books about Juche and the DPRK:

http://www.korean-books.com.kp/en/



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Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 27/46

Life Medicine and Organic Impairment

It is the organising or ‘ordering’ capacities of the lived body and physical soul that allow us not just to remain open to, sense and feel, take and breathe in, digest and metabolise our experience of life but also to:

(a) make sense of our lives and life world in an organised and ordered way, and

(b) engage in our lives and relate to our life world in a meaningful and fulfilling way. This is achieved through what the existential physician and neurologist Kurt Goldstein called “ordered performances”.

By this he meant ordered activities or patterns of action of any sort that we are normally able to enact within or in response to our life world or environment – whether basic actions such as breathing, moving, walking, talking, clothing ourselves, cooking, eating or fulfilling domestic tasks etc., or more sophisticated ‘performances’ such as engaging in highly skilled creative, communicative or professional activities and interactions.

Chronic or permanent loss of or impairment to organs and organic functions (for example loss of mobility, sight or hearing) impair and limit such ordered life activities or ‘performances’. They also affect and express states of our organism as a whole and are felt through ‘generalised’ organismic states such as fatigue, depression, loss of cognitive capacities or libido etc.

From the perspective of Life Medicine however, to see biological ‘death’ resulting from organ failure as the end point of our being or existence is to forget that the lived body, being a non-physical body of feeling awareness or soul – our ‘soul body’ – is by nature eternal.

Therefore what is essentially threatened by a continued or worsening organic impairment – even if ‘life threatening’ – is not any form of ‘absolute death’ but rather what is of absolute importance to the current life and health of the patient in this life and this world i.e. their capacity to actualise their individual potentials by means of specific organic capacities and the ordered ‘performances’ or patterns of action they facilitate. For as Goldstein wrote:

“…health is not an objective condition which can be understood by the methods of natural science alone. It is rather a condition related to the mental attitude by which the individual has to value what is essential for his life. ‘Health’ appears thus as a value; its value consists in the individual’s capacity to actualise his nature to the degree, that for him at least, is essential.”

If this understanding offers us a deeper insight into the true essence of ‘health’, what then are its implications for our understanding of the essence of ‘illness’? In the context of organic impairment this question takes us beyond the purely clinical realm of biological medicine and takes us once again into the realm of personal life meaning.

For example, a partial loss of movement in a leg may mean very little to a sedentary worker but everything to an athlete such as a runner or sportsman, just as a speech impairment may mean much less to a manual labourer but everything to a salesman, teacher or writer – inducing an overall organismic reaction that Goldstein calls ‘catastrophic’ shock and anxiety – being a threat to the very essence of the individual’s ‘life’ or ‘existence’ understood as a means of self-actualisation. On the other hand a patient may be known to have a ‘disease’ in a potentially ‘life threatening’ cancer without this in any way outwardly affecting their capacity for self-actualisation through specific patterns of action or organised ‘performances’. If, as a result of this ‘disease’ diagnosis however, the life world and life possibilities of the cancer patient are shrunk down to merely being kept alive in a hospital bed and/or subject to hi-tech radiological or chemotherapeutic treatments which radically reduce their quality of life – then it is difficult to argue that this type of ‘medicine’ in any way benefits their ‘health’ in the sense defined by Goldstein.

As for illness or ‘disease’, he writes:

“It may be stated as certain that any disease is an abnormality but not that every abnormality is a disease.”

So for example, when people get ill through ‘stress’ i.e. when demands far beyond what Goldstein calls their “average potentialities” are imposed on them – they may recognise an abnormality in their condition, for example feel ill with the symptoms of a cold or flu – an ailment – but they do not regard themselves for this reason as having ‘a disease’.

In general however, whatever ‘symptoms’ may be observed, such as high blood pressure, or whatever ‘diseases’ may be bio-medically diagnosed as a result – for example heart disease – all that has actually occurred is a deviation from a biological norm.

Yet this scientific norm may have little to do with a patient’s own highly individual norm for assessing their own ‘health’ – understood as their capacity to lead a healthy and fulfilling life.

What biomedicine judges by its own purely biological norms to be a ‘disease’ therefore, is in essence nothing more than an observable change of state of the organism, one that may not only be more or less temporary – but also more or less meaningful, threatening or catastrophic to a patient’s experience of life – not just the life of their physical body.

For as Seth explains (see appendix 6)

“The body does not recognise diseases as diseases in usually understood terms. It regards all activity as experience, as a momentary condition of life, as a balancing situation.” (from The Way Toward Health by Jane Roberts)

Yet biological medicine understands its primary purpose as to fight disease and prevent death at any cost – qualitative and quantitative – to the life of the patient. This implies that disease is merely and invariably an abnormality with no meaning – and that life itself consists merely in just continuing to ‘be alive’ or ‘survive’ biologically, rather than living in a way that brings a necessary, minimum degree of self-actualisation and fulfilment (the essence of ‘health’).

That is why, in cases where a patient is left with a remaining deficit or chronic and incurable organic impairment which more or less severely limits their capacity for a particular type of ordered “performance” or life activity, Goldstein ’s view was that it was of the utmost importance for the individual to find ways to re-order and if necessary limit their life world itself – what he called their “milieu” – not through mere institutionalisation or for the purposes of medical treatment but in a way that:

1. reduces the demands imposed on the individual to respond with “ordered performances ” to an extent they are no longer capable of or can cope with
2. nevertheless provides the patient with an ordered environment in which they can still continue to engage in fulfilling forms of ordered activity, old or new.

Though Goldstein dealt with patients suffering from severe neurological damage, this also applies to people with far less severe illnesses or even minor ailments – to which they might respond by taking days off work, staying at home or in bed etc. – all of which are simple ways of temporarily limiting their life world to a less demanding or stressful “milieu” – but one in which they can nevertheless engage in some satisfactory ordered activities or work of some sort.

‘Order’ is in this way central to Goldstein’s view of organic impairment, suggesting a manner in which the physician could serve as a ‘life doctor’ in the most literal sense – restoring a minimum degree of healthily fulfilling and ordered activity to the patient’s life and well-being rather than seeking only to cure or alleviate a physical disease or impairment.

“…being well means to be capable of ordered behaviour which may prevail in spite of the impossibility of certain performances which were formerly possible. But the new state of health is not the same as the old one … Recovery is a newly achieved state of ordered functioning … a new individual norm.”

With this final emphasis, Goldstein affirms that the new norm, like the old one, must be an individual one and nothing imposed from without – based on ordered activities satisfying to the individual’s essential nature – even if a portion of this ‘essence’ may have permanently lost its capacity for a full, undefective and ordered expression.

Life Medicine, like the reflections on health and illness that form part of the ‘existential neurology’ of Goldstein, also affirms the significance of free choice on the part of the patient. Thus there may be a situation in which a patient must freely decide whether and to what extent to either limit his or her existing life world and its ordered activities in the face of particular limits to their capacities or to continue to engage in these activities as before despite the pain or suffering that accompanies them (for example by staying in an over-demanding job).

Whatever the patient decides – with the potential help, encouragement and counselling of the physician as ‘life doctor’ – the outcome is a way in which the patient freely decides to adapt his or her environment or milieu to his own needs and desires – rather than being forced to adapt to them.

Recognising this, we have immediately transcended the one-sided Darwinian notion that organisms survive and thrive solely by adapting to their environment – rather than by adapting that environment – their life world – in a way that best serves their essential health and well-being.

This is also significant given that most people live in two environments or ‘life worlds’. One is a ‘negative environment’ in which social structures and economic conditions actually and constantly deprive individuals of potentials for healthy self-actualisation and instead overload them with demands unrelated to these potentials – often to the point where they cannot ‘cope’ with these demands or the lack of fulfilment they get from meeting them. As a result people get ill simply by virtue of adapting to a fundamentally unhealthy or sick social-economic environment – and are medically treated simply to restore their capacity to function economically in a way that serves that environment.

The other environment is whatever ‘positive’ environment, life world or milieu individuals are able to forge for themselves within or outside their ‘negative’ environment. This positive environment is one that genuinely serves the individual’s need to take time, not just for rest, recuperation or distraction from the ills and illnesses induced by their negative environment, but also and above all for activities that serve their positive self-actualisation, and with it their essential life health – something that has nothing to do with so-called ‘healthy lifestyles’.

Reference: Goldstein, Kurt The Organism


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